Squiz Today / 29 August 2017

Squiz Today – Tuesday, 29 August

SQUIZ SAYINGS

“Baby girl, we don’t change - we take the gravel in the shell, and we make a pearl. And we help other people to change so that they can see more kinds of beauty.”

Beautiful words from singer Pink while accepting an MTV Video Music Award yesterday. Her 6yo daughter recently told her; “I’m the ugliest girl I know, I look like a boy with long hair.” Pink, who has broken quite a few moulds in her time, went home, made her a PowerPoint presentation featuring Prince, Annie Lennox and David Bowie and told her it’s awesome to be different. Very cool. 


NETWORK TEN TO BE BOUGHT BY CBS

THE SQUIZ
In a surprise announcement yesterday, US broadcaster CBS confirmed it had reached an agreement to buy the financially troubled Ten Network. CBS will purchase all of Ten’s broadcasting interests including the main channel, Eleven (of which CBS already owns 33%) and One, as well digital platform TENPLAY. The purchase is subject to approval by the Foreign Investment Review Board and the agreement of a majority of Ten’s creditors. CBS touts itself as America’s most-watched television network and said they will move to launch CBS All Access, their digital subscription video on-demand service, in Oz. Before yesterday's announcement, Aussie media moguls Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon were getting organised to buy the company – an arrangement that received competition regulatory approval just last week.

SO WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE BACHELOR?
No one really knows just yet what the implications for Ten’s programming will be. Ten already has a content deal with CBS, taking many of their programs like NCIS, Madam Secretary and Elementary. As for local content, all CBS said was; “We also look forward to working with the outstanding team at Network Ten to enhance and expand on its great legacy of Australian news, drama, reality and sports programming.” And that could mean anything – or nothing – but remember there are local content rules they will have to follow. The big wildcard is what impact their streaming service might have on the local market. 

AND WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR MEDIA REFORM?
That's the question that kept you up last night, right? Before yesterday's events, some said reform to media laws were urgent (particularly relaxing the ‘two-out-of-three’ rule that prohibits one media company or individual from owning two out of three types of media in one market) in order to "save Ten". Now that CBS has stepped up, Labor said changing those laws is no longer a priority. The Turnbull Government stuck to their guns and said the Facebook/Google advertising problems didn’t evaporate with CBS’s announcement, and Aussie media still needed the option to consolidate and, hopefully, become stronger. In truth, CBS’s announcement was such a surprise it will probably take policymakers and media players a little while to get their heads around it.


SQUIZ THE REST

MYSTERY AROUND WHO SHOT THREE-YEAR-OLD SYDNEY GIRL
The tragic shooting death of a 3yo girl in Sydney’s west on Sunday night stopped us in our tracks yesterday. There was early speculation that the little girl could have shot herself after getting her hands on a loaded sawn-off shotgun that was being kept in her home. However, NSW Police have not yet confirmed who they believe fired the shot. The girl’s mother and three siblings were at home and reports say the girl’s father, Ali Mohammed Moussa (43yo), was near the home at the time of the incident. He was arrested for breaching an apprehended violence order and firearm offences. That poor little girl.

IRONMAN DEAN MERCER’S SHOCK DEATH ON THE GOLD COAST
The tight-knit surf lifesaving community was in shock yesterday following news of the sudden death of Iron Man Dean Mercer. The former national champion died of a heart attack as he returned home yesterday from his regular morning training session at Kurrawa Surf Club. The car he was driving at the time slammed into a fence in Mermaid Waters. Mercer leaves behind a wife and four young boys. He was just 47yo.

REMAINS OF US SAILORS FOUND
The US Navy yesterday confirmed they have found the remains of all ten sailors lost from the USS John S McCain after a collision last week with an oil tanker near Singapore. Most of those killed were in the 20s. And the remains of three US Marines lost after their Osprey aircraft crashed into the sea off Rockhampton in early August were finally recovered late last week.

GOOD WEEK FOR A MEETING
Our airport bosses are getting together today to discuss upping security to deal with potential terrorist attacks. The most pressing issue is ID checks before domestic flights – some worry the queues would create a new terror risk. And tomorrow PM Malcolm Turnbull is bringing the CEOs of our biggest electricity companies together again to check if they completed their homework tasks on working out how to lower our power prices. For the record, we’re not ‘meetings’ people when a phone call or email would suffice.

BIG INQUIRY INTO COMMONWEALTH BANK KICKS OFF
Something about the banking regulator’s announcement that they’re investigating the Commonwealth Bank made us think of this classic movie line. Like Malcolm Turnbull’s leather jacket, Australia’s biggest bank is certainly getting a lot of attention ATM. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s investigation announced yesterday is no small thing. In fact, the government was talking up its scale and clout as they fended off Labor’s calls for a Royal Commission into the banks. In a nice piece of reverse psychology, Commonwealth’s chairman Catherine Livingstone said; “APRA’s oversight of this inquiry will ensure the independence and transparency needed to reassure all our stakeholders.”

UBER APPOINTS NEW CEO
After project Travis 2.0 failed to lift off, Uber yesterday announced it has appointed a new CEO having pinched Expedia’s chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi. Other mooted candidates including Meg Whitman from Hewlett Packard and Jeff Immelt, former CEO of General Electric were considered more likely contenders, so Khosrowshahi’s appointment came as a surprise. Uber’s problems around culture, harassment and discrimination are well documented (as well as the challenge of former boss Travis Kalanick remaining on the board) meaning the new boss will have his work cut out for him.

NOTABLE PICS AND CLICKS
We have three items for your consideration:

This gallery of pictures gives some sense of the scale and impact of Hurricane Harvey on Houston - America’s fourth largest city.

Back to the MTV video awards – here’s all the frocks and shocks from yesterday’s musical knees-up.

If you want to check out what all the fuss is about, here’s Taylor Swift’s new video with some explanatory notes. As this link says, it’s “a pileup of self-aware moments” making the whole exercise worthwhile just to add that phrase to our vocab.

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